


Raining summer

by somebodytoldme



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Based off animated film, Character Death, Fantasy, Oneshot, Sad, alternative universe, fairy tale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 04:02:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11683623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somebodytoldme/pseuds/somebodytoldme
Summary: Rey meets a boy who will disappear if she touches him.





	Raining summer

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is inspired/based off of Hotarubi no Mori e
> 
> It doesn't follow it exactly, but I heavily borrowed. If you haven't watched Hotarubi no Mori e - (even if you aren't into anime) you really should. It is a very sweet film.  
> It'll break your heart. 
> 
> Also if you have Spotify please PLEASE listen to:
> 
> End Roll by Takeshi Senoo 
> 
> I couldn't find the right version anywhere else. And it just adds to the experience as I wrote the fic to this song.  
> Best <3

The rain came down lightly at first, gently misting in the air.

A young human was standing in the rain with outstretched arms, inhaling deeply the dewy air. It closed its eyes and clenched its fists, as if to seize the moment in time, or collect the rain itself. But it is not possible to capture water, it just flows through time, through fingertips.

Though, the human does not despair, it opens its eyes and makes a delighted sound. It spins, runs, and leaps through the forest and rain. It only delights more when the rain grows stronger. It is very different from others, who get disgruntled over the rain.

It’s interesting.

He follows, watches as it races and leaps through the forest without thought. Sees its foot catch one of the many upturned roots and watches it painfully smash into the leaves and mud. It doesn’t move.

He inches closer, though he knows he should not. It’s a bad idea. But he’s curious and maybe a little foolish. He stops a few paces away, but it doesn’t move. He inches closer, until he gazes down on its brown hair, pulled up into bun. Shorts and white shirt surely ruined in the mud. He’s never seen one up so close, he leans down to smell it.

It suddenly jolts up, and he backtracks so hard he, himself falls. The head turns, alerted, towards him - like a deer in the headlights.

He stares, holding his breath. But it doesn’t move, so he dares not to either. It suddenly stands, like a broken spell, and looks around its surroundings. It looks confused, as if something had possessed its body and it had not been the one prancing through the forest to get here moments earlier.

“You’re lost,” he states, having used the time to get his footing.

The human freezes and looks back at him, again. Surprised. Perhaps it brushed him off as a figment of its imagination. But it looks defiant, it places its hands on its hips. “I am NOT lost. I know the way back.” And it marches away, deeper into the forest.

Bemused, he follows. What an odd creature. It clearly had no idea where it was going.

It walks for a long time before suddenly halting. He stops a few paces behind, and it turns to confront him. “Why are you following me?”

“You’re going the wrong way.”

“Why should I trust a wolf?”

His hand twitches at his side, itching to touch his mask, suddenly feeling hyper-aware of himself. “Because there is no other way you’re getting out.”

Defiance, anger at the challenge. “Why?” A little fear.

He glares back, “This forest is cursed, children like you get lost and ate.”

“Ate?” Its voice rises in fear, and he nods vaguely, as if to emphasize the lie. Though it wasn’t a complete lie. Some spirits were really did hate intruders. Humans.

“I’ll show you the way out,” he offers, not really sure why.

It still looks distrustful, “How do I know you won’t eat me too?”

“I’m not hungry,” he says simply. Not mentioning that he can’t eat it, even if he wanted to. Couldn’t lay a single finger on it. But he should not reveal such weakness, and simply begins to walk back towards town.

It trails after him, despite its unwillingness.

It is a slow trip back, and he is forced to stop a few times when something new catches its attention. It pauses over every pond, and chases every frog until he gets disgruntled enough to push onward. When they finally reach the breakage of trees, to the path toward town, it is dusk.

They both stand at the entrance of the path and it just looks up at him. “Thank you, Mister Wolf,” it says, and outstretches its hand.

He looks distastefully at it and says nothing.

It shifts its weight onto the other foot, “My name is Rey, what is yours?”

He says nothing.

“I’ll come by tomorrow, with something to eat, since you didn’t eat me,” Rey announces and begins down the path.

“Don’t come back! I’ll eat you!” He threatens to Rey’s back. The less humans in the forest, the better. But it only turns to wave at him.

\---

He waits for the next day, at the spot where the trees open up to the path that leads to town. He doesn’t know why, or what compels him to wait. He told Rey not to come. He doesn’t want it to come. He’s better off alone.

He watches the sunrise, listens to the bird’s chirp and scurry around him. He climbs a tree and watches the sun drag across the sky, and clouds form and bunch up at the threat of rain. He just closes his eyes when he hears footsteps on the forest floor.

He peeks down to see a brown bun bobbing up and down on the figure racing towards his tree. “Mister Wolf, I’m sorry I kept you waiting!”

He sighs, ignoring the small contentment he feels at Rey’s appearance. He wasn’t waiting, he was making sure it didn’t come back. But if it was here, he’d entertain himself. “You made me wait a long time.”

Rey shakes its head, “I had to sneak out of the house…” It holds up a basket, “I brought sandwiches!”

He sniffs, “I don’t like sandwiches.”

It looks down, flustered, “Oh… sorry…”

He leans down and snatches the basket, pulling up the cloth to reveal two peanut butter sandwiches wrapped in napkins. He plucks one and eats it.

“It’s good, right Mister Wolf?” Rey asks, beaming from below.

The sandwich tastes like nothing. Spirits don’t eat human food. It feels weird and foreign in his mouth. But he goes through the motions, anyway. He can’t understand why, why it would matter to him if he hurt its feelings. “Stop calling me Mister Wolf,” he says, disgruntled.

“What should I call you then?”

“Ren.”

\---

Rey goes home not long after that, saying that the other humans would be looking for it. It said it would be back tomorrow.

He tries to protest. But he still waits for the next day when it returns.

This time he leads it around the forest, showing its rivers, lakes and ponds. All, of which, delight Rey. Rey loves the water, in all forms. It explains to him that it never saw so much water before it came here. That it was wonderful.

On their way through the human catches the interest of other spirits, whose forms appear deformed and ghastly to Rey. Rey cowers from behind him, as he speaks to them. They soon fade, in acceptance of his visitor.

It is more hesitant about wandering off without him after.

\---

Rey also talked a lot about other humans. Girls and boys, mothers and fathers…

Humans that she didn’t have in her life like others did. The things that she had went through before she moved her. She now lived with her Luke?

Ren understood little of what she said.

\---

One-day Rey sneaks up behind him, to tackle him.

It is innocent, but he barely manages make it away in time.

“If you touch me – I shall eat you.” He threatens.

\---

Summer is at its end, and fall was just a breath away from them, that night when Ren leads Rey out of the forest again.

She pauses on her way out, foot scuffing the forest floor, for the words to say.

He stills.

“Ren… I won’t be able to come tomorrow… Or the day after that. Or for a while.”

It is an odd feeling, something akin to sadness? His days were spent and filled with Rey. There was a pang, here, he didn’t understand. What was he to fill his days with.

“Come again, in summer?” The words come out before he thinks them.

Rey beams suddenly, “Yes! I will see you next summer, Ren!” She yells it again as she races down the path, back home.

He watches her go. He breathes, “Don’t come back…”

\---

Autumn comes with falling colors and falling leaves. He wonders what Rey would say about them.

Winter leaves a cold, white blanket over the barren forest. Rey would love it.

Spring blooms and flowers. He anxiously walks to the same spot every day, and walks back again.

Summer comes to life, and he waits for the first sounds of footsteps on the forest floor. And they come with longer hair, but even brighter eyes.

\---

They lay out in a small clearing in the long grass.

“Ren?”

He hums, turning his face towards her.

“We’re friends, right?”

He didn’t know what that meant. “I don’t know.”

Rey rolls onto her side, smiling at his confusion, “Friends are people who like to spend time together. Who care about each other, and tell each other secrets.”

He thinks about it. Looking as she gets distracted and begins to fiddle with a daisy in front of her. They did spend time together. He thought about her when she was gone. And she told him everything. She had come back more talkative than last time.

“We are,” he states as a matter-of-fact after some consideration, and lays back into the grass.

Rey smiles brightly at that.

\---

And so, another summer passes.

And Rey leaves.

And Ren waits.

\---

She comes back again.

She leaves.

\---

“They tell me you aren’t real.”

Ren blinks at her. She had been silent all day, sulking on the rock, by the river they sat at. He had wondered what was on her mind, but decided not to pry.

She looks to him for some type of protest or confirmation.

He shrugs. “Maybe I am not.”

Rey looks frustrated. “How could you _say_ that. Everyone tells me you are a figment of my imagination, they call me crazy, too old to be believing in such things… And _you_ tell me I am crazy!”

He watches her jump up from the rock and pace. “I don’t know who, or what you are, I don’t know what your face looks like under that mask, hell, I don’t even know if you have a face!” She groans in frustration, and squats down next to him.

He watches as she reaches out towards him, but she stops. “I can’t even touch you…”

He smiles. She can’t see it.

He reaches up to his mask, her eyes widen. He closes his eyes and gently lifts the mask off, into his lap. He opens them to her stunned expression.

“You’re… normal.”

He almost laughs. An expression he didn’t know that well until he met her. He smiles instead. “What did you expect, a black void?”

She jumps at the sound of his voice, as if she didn’t believe it were really him.

He shakes his head, “I look human, Rey… But I’m not. Maybe I’m not real.” He looked down at the mask in his lap, and fiddled with it, “I’m not like other spirits in this forest… I was human, at one point. But I got lost here… And I couldn’t find my way out. The spirits liked me, they took pity on me, and let me live here forever… I don’t remember my human name. Just that I am Kylo Ren.”

He looks up to Rey, who is listening intently.

“And with a human touch, I will disappear.”

\---

Ren takes off his mask more when Rey is around. Because it makes her happy. She likes to see his expression, she says.

And another summer is spent.

\---

Rey comes back one summer looking different.

He realizes how tall she has gotten. How her small face and frame has become sharper, womanly. She has grown older.

He notices her grown more reserved. Still bright, talkative, but less likely to jump into lakes or rivers freely. Less likely race around unhinged. More prone to deeper and longer conversation.

She talks often about school. A place she says she learns things. She talks about her friends there, Finn and Poe. About the trouble they get into. The friendship they have.

Sometimes he feels a pang during these talks, like the one when she leaves as the sun goes down.

“Kylo, are you listening?”

He pauses and looks up at her frowning face from the river, as she stands on a fallen log to cross it.

“I can’t believe you weren’t listening again,” she complains continuing across. Only her footing fails, and she pitches forward to fall into the water.

He leaps forward to catch her, flinching as he doesn’t make it in time and she crashes into the water.

She comes up in a panic, springing to the surface, and shouting his name, “Ren!” She catches sight of him and breathes, scrambling to the bank to where he quickly follows.

“Rey… Are you alright?”

She looks miserable, soaked and spewing. But she glares up at him, “Kylo Ren! You _idiot_!”

He flinches.

“Don’t you _ever_ try to save me! Don’t you ever touch me!” Tears well up in her eyes, and he suppresses the urge to wipe them again. The desire to, is so strong, so foreign to him it is hard to tamper down.

So, he just sits there. Watches. And waits.

\---

“Kylo?”

He stops to turn toward her. They are on their way back, on the last day of summer. It is later than usual. “Yes?”

She flushes, “Never mind… I’ll see you next summer!” She calls as she rushes forward and out of the forest.

Leaving him behind with the autumn leaves, winter snow, and spring showers.

\---

Summer begins and she does not come.

She doesn’t come for days, weeks, a month. He lingers around their lakes and rivers. The spirits of the forest try to comfort him, in his sulking.

\---

She returns late summer, tanned and calm.

He sits in his tree, looking down as she waves up to him. He knows he should not be bitter, but he is. She has forgotten him, she has left him most the summer, after he waits. Three seasons pass in the forest, and he waits.

She does not. Time does not wait. Humans are like this, the spirits whisper. Their life spans are sort, and fast lived. They forget about things such as spirits on lonely mountains in the summer time.

She calls up to him, and he ignores her.

She tries again the next day, but he refuses to come down. He contemplates leaving, diving deeper into the forest. Where he won’t wait, or won’t be able to.

But he doesn’t.

And she loses her patience on the third day.

“Ren! Come down! I did not forget you! I was forced to go on a retreat for school! They wouldn’t let me out of it because they were concerned about my childhood fantasy about the boy in the mountains!”

He looks down at her red-faced glare. And slowly descends from the tree. When he touches the ground, he can feel the anger radiating off her. And it sparks his own. “Maybe it is time you did let your childhood _fantasy_ go! You’re not a child anymore! Leave me alone!”

She flinches at his words. He watches tears form in her eyes and she turns and storms off. “Fine! Goodbye!”

He lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. And it feels like something is breaking inside, as he watches her go.

It is for the better. He knows.

“Don’t come back… I’ll eat you.”

\---

Seasons fade. In and out.

He doesn’t count them, anymore. Maybe three or four come and go so quickly.

Time just flows, like the pitter patter of rain.

\---

He comes back to their tree one day. He hasn’t been back since the fight.

A basket sits at the bottom of his tree. Flowers protrude out the side, and as he gets closer he sees something in wrapped in napkin. Something familiar pangs inside of him. And he reaches up, removing his mask and laying it in the grass as he lifts the sandwich.

There is a rustling behind him and he looks up, surprised to see not too far in the distance, a young freckle faced girl running up the path towards him.

The child looks back as she runs, not paying attention to where she is going, little Rey stumbles. He leaps forward and catches her before she can fall onto the sharp stone. She groans, and looks up at him, “Thanks Mister.”

He smiles.

He hears a shocked yell. And then a cry. And when he looks up she sees a woman running up the hill. Rey.

“Kylo!” She cries, the basket she was carrying thrown off to the side. She pauses just inches from them, as if her touch could do more damage.

He almost smiles. He pats the young girls head, and stands to face Rey. He can feel the magic breaking at the seams. He can feel it shattering. “Rey,” he says and reaches out for her.

She rushes into his embrace. And he holds her. Really holds her. Feels her skin, her smell. He closes his eyes.

“I love you.”

He didn’t know what love was. But he felt it too. “I know, me too.”

They kiss under the pitter patter of rain.

And he slowly feels her slipping through his fingers. Her face is the last thing he

\---

Rey stands and lets the rain soak her skin.

Leia, Finn and Poe’s daughter, her surrogate daughter looks up at her curiously. “Was that your friend?”

She breathes, and walks over to the basket she left out every day since their fight. In the grass, she sees the wolf’s mask. She kneels and cradles it to her chest.

\---

 Ben wakes up.

To the pitter patter of rain.


End file.
